Monday, October 7, 2013

The TorchBearer's Book Club: Bumped chapter 24

Posted by
K

This chapter… oh, this chapter.

I’m very positive in my belief that this is where shit gets
real.

Funny, right? I’ve just spent weeks upon weeks of talking
how real this or that aspect of Bumped is, but when I look back, I notice that
so many of the harder moments were offset by some kind of comic relief. Lib the
pimp is portrayed as flamboyant and camp, shrill and implicitly gay, and mostly
unthreatening. Melody’s parents like to indulge in Toxin brownies. Shoko’s
always got jokes up her sleeve, and even Malia’s story, while tragic, is
delivered through the lens of Melody’s narration, which strips it a little of
its immediacy.

But this chapter is when we witness propaganda at work,
first hand. And, holy shit, does Ventura Vida sell it.

“The Pro / Am has an image
problem,” she says. “We’re just not sexy enough. I mean, rilly.”

We reviewed the fund-and-awareness
raising success of “Why save yourself when you can save the world?” T-shirt
sale. We signed a petition to have the caf services serve more fertile and
high-folate versions of pizza and French fries because we’re all gagging on the
spinach and chickpeas in the salad bar. It’s the last meeting of the year, and
there’s nothing else on the Pro / Am agenda except to vote for the next president.

McCafferty, Megan, “Bumped”, page 137, Harper Collins, Kindle Edition

Nothing else, huh? Nobody noticed the obvious clash between
those T-shirts and your assumption that teenage girls are now the most
important people on the planet? How come “saving yourself” is a bad thing if
those girls’ goals are to earn something, be it emotional fulfilment or a monetary
compensation, from delivering healthy babies? To follow their logic, if you’re
an amateur, you want your sexual experience to be a good one. If you’re a pro,
you’d want the best possible deal. We had Lib praise Melody for keeping her
legs crossed and keeping an eye on the purity prize (GAG!) and we have Ventura
who calls her bump “Perfect” (DOUBLE GAG!) and then mock Melody for not bumping
with Zen, even though everyone in that room knows why Zen can’t bump with
anyone.

Melody then goes to talk about the bead necklaces girls wear
– apparently, they get a bed per trimester, and then one for each delivery –
and how the fact that Pros can afford diamonds while the Ams can only get
rhinestones was one of the reasons why there was tension and a need for the
union to be formed. And yet, the fact that nobody has yet introduced a “Rhinestones
or no stones” rule for everyone makes me think that somebody on that committee
isn’t really interested in eliminating differences as they are in insuring a
temporary truce so that they can achieve their chosen political end.

Oh, sorry, we’re still talking about YA, right?

“The new man brands are getting
too much attention. We’re all seen the Toxin ads…”

The room explodes with everyone’s
studs for hire.

“For serious. How hot is Phoenix?”

“I want me some Finch!”

“Jondoe! Omigod, Jondoe!”

“Yes, they’re all major stiffies,”
Ventura yells over the chatter. “But it shouldn’t be about them! It should be
about us! You can’t PREGG without the…”

“EGG!” shout Tulie Peters (sophomore,
amateur, thirteen weeks) and Dyanna Merril (senior, professional, fourteen
weeks) in usion. They obviously practiced this call-and-response before the
meeting. I have to give Ventura credit for getting an amateur and professional
to chant together in the spirit of bipartisan pregging. I’d also like to point
out that you can’t PREGG without the SPERM either, but highlighting such
contradictions in Ventura’s logic would go over like a raging case of haemorrhoids.

McCafferty, Megan, “Bumped”, page 138, Harper Collins, Kindle Edition

And that, Melody, is why you will never excel in politics. Passionately
standing up for your convictions has been a staple of politics before they were
even called that, and if you need to play dirty to use your opponent’s rhetoric
against them, then so be it!

Granted, shaking the boat does not always work, but here,
Melody has a very valid point, and she has the potential to succeed, since her
audience contains several fans of those so-called man brands. The fact that she
doesn’t is consistent with her character (someone who doesn’t start conflict
because she’s afraid of confrontation) but is also the reason why Melody lost
this debate before it even began.

She puts on her serious
life-or-death face.

“I know you are all aware of the
unfortunate circumstances that led to the dismissal of our former president.” (…) “We live in frightening times,
girls, and we need to be role models, not reneggers. (…) It is our duty to work
together as professionals and amateurs to promote positive pregging for the
sake of all the parental units who desperately want our deliveries. Do you
appreciate how lucky we are to live in a true melting pot of races, ethnicities
and cultures? In the United States, deliveries of every colour and creed are valued.
Did you know that if we lived in the
Middle East, or parts of Europe, we would be forced to pregg with members of
our own kind to keep the gene pool pure?” A ripple of gasps moves through the
group. “I know. It’s shocking to think that the government would try to stick
its nose in our ladyparts.”

McCafferty, Megan, “Bumped”, page 141, Harper Collins, Kindle Edition

You mean, more than it already is? Didn’t this book start
with a quote from the President of the United States? Isn’t the government
working right now to limit women’s access to birth control and abortions? How
much, exactly, is this not interference?

Second, “ladyparts” is a pretty transphobic term, coming
from someone who insists that teenage girls are the most important people on
the planet. Would you like to amend that statement to “teenage girls with
functional uteri?” Or how about “real women”, to ham that message in clearer?
Then again, this was never about the joys of sex, is it?

Finally, I notice that the only people running for this post
are Pros. Both Ventura and Melody’s matches have been hand-picked for the best
result, and in Melody’s case, the sponsors insisted on the purity of the gene
pool anyway. Shoko and Raimundo had a “surprising” bidding war for their
delivery, considering they weren’t marketable enough before the result was
visible, and they both have Spaniard names. Amateurs rely on a post-delivery
offer that depends on what the parental units are willing to offer. So no, I
really can’t see where this “melting pot” comes in hand. The only difference
here is that capitalism and monetary incentives give the illusion of choice,
while the Middle East and Europe dispense with that bullshit from the get-go.

And Ventura manages to spin it like it’s some kind of racial
empowerment.

The woman is a born politician!

“Our mixmatchy preggs are the
best way to promote peace around the world. Who are you going to hate if you
have blood from every continent running through you?” She casts a sly glance in
my direction. “That is, unless you’re like Melody here, who’s so pure no
swimmers are worthy of her womb… Just scamming!”

McCafferty, Megan, “Bumped”, page 141, Harper Collins, Kindle Edition

And that is from the one calling her pregg “Perfect”; Who is
waxing eloquent about the prowess of her donor.

As for world peace through racial equality, I’m pretty sure
you’ll quickly find some other reason to hate others. War, as we know, is very
profitable, and we can’t dispense with it, or else we might actually have to
rely on diplomacy to secure natural resources, or get humanitarian aid when the
government can’t handle things. Also, you can convert to religions, sexual orientation
and gender-identity still exist and diverge, and classism isn’t going anywhere.
Also, don’t forget the main cause of tension Melody mentioned in this chapter –
the fact that parental units are willing to pay a higher price if they model
their own baby, rather than take the risk with something that some amateurs
randomly threw together. Do you think that’s incidental?

Markets depend on competition to drive the prices. And
pregging is a market, regardless of how the conception happened. If amateurs
and professionals dispensed with their rivalry and demanded equal opportunity
for all, and some kind of price control, everyone profiting from this endeavour
– from Fun Bump makers to RePro agents – will take the hit. Tensions will rise
between surrogettes and industry, industry and parental units, parental units
and surrogettes, and someone in the government will have the brilliant idea to play
Taylor and suggest mandatory inseminations.

I mean, duh!

“Whether you’re an amateur,” –she
pauses to look meaningfully at Celine and Tulie—“or a Professional Surrogette,”
–she stops again to lock eyes with Dyanna and a captivated Shoko—“our nation
needs all our preggs, girls, if we have any chance of reclaiming our undisputed
status as the most powerful country in the world well into the twenty-first
century and beyond. If we hesitate,” –and now she slowly turns her head in my
direction—“our multicultural American society, a shining beacon of tolerance
and empathy around the world, will die. I mean, like, rilly, rilly die.”

Hey, teenage girl, are you in possession of a functioning
uterus? Well, guess what? You need to start working towards pushing out as many
babies as possible, regardless of whether you have the monetary means and
emotional maturity to look after them, and if nobody is willing to pay you for
your troubles, you must still do it, because it would be a betrayal to the
nation and world peace everywhere!

Ventura’s chosen her ambitions well.

Even before the votes are cast –
all but two (thanks Shoko) in Ventura’s favour – there’s no doubt in my mind
that I’m rilly, rilly, humped.”